Erie School Board to consider charter application

The Erie School Board is fielding yet another application from a group seeking to start a charter school -- this time, a high school.

The Boys & Girls Club of Erie is seeking to open the Huxley Charter School for the Liberal Arts and Sciences for students in ninth through 12th grade inside its building at 1515 East Lake Road.

A public hearing on the application is set for Dec. 18 at 5 p.m. in the auditorium of East High School, 1001 Atkins St.

Al Messina, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club, declined to answer specific questions about the nonprofit's decision to open a charter or to provide details about how it would operate.

"We're looking forward to the opportunity to express publicly our support for the Huxley School and to answer any questions the school district might have at this hearing," Messina said.

A website dedicated to the charter school, www.thehuxleycharterschool.org, describes the school this way: "To graduate students who would have the breadth of knowledge from an integrated, interdisciplinary curriculum, and depth of knowledge through the in-depth study of an academic discipline of interest to them, thus fulfilling Thomas Henry Huxley's definition of an educated person as someone who knows something about everything and everything about something."

All students would select an academic "area of concentration" from one of four basic disciplines -- English, math, science or social studies -- and then major within that discipline.

Students would be matched with a mentor, a teacher whose academic specialty aligns with their area of concentration.

It was not clear whether the school's goals or philosophy or any details about the school have changed since the publication of the website.

Tim Sennett, the lawyer who represents the Erie School District on charter issues, said the school wants to open for the 2014-15 school year with 150 students, a number it projects will double in five years.

The charter is the second application the board has reviewed this month. On Dec. 3, it voted to deny an application from the Erie New Americans Friendship Academy Charter School, a school that would target English language learners, on the basis that it would be discriminatory, among other concerns.

Charters are a costly challenge to the district: In 2013-14, the district budgeted $15 million for charter school tuition for about 1,800 students who will attend for all or part of the year.

"The interest level among potential charter operators is certainly not unique to our area," said Matthew Cummings, the district's director of communications. "Charter schools in Pennsylvania exist mainly in urban areas like Erie and market primarily to socioeconomically disadvantaged children, despite the fact that charter school performance in Pennsylvania lags behind traditional public schools.

"I believe the interest among enterprising charter operators speaks more to flaws in the law that make charter schools attractive revenue-generating opportunities and a means for organizations to access tax dollars without equal accountability," Cummings said. "Taking resources from one group of students to give it to another group of students is not the answer to improving education in urban areas."

ERICA ERWIN can be reached at 870-1846 or by e-mail. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNerwin.